The Amazing Side Benefit of Writing a Daily To-Do List

&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;Take five minutes to make your days and nights more smooth&period;&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;

We’ve all been there&comma; kept awake and tossing and turning because we’re anxious about what challenges the next day will bring&period; But a recent study found that if you spend just five minutes putting together a to-do list to tackle in the morning&comma; you might go to sleep more quickly&period;

The team of researchers tried to figure out if the to-do lists would lead to more or less concern about the following day’s tasks&period; They monitored a group of university students as they slept during weeknights in the lab&period; The students were split into two randomly selected groups and given two different five-minute writing assignments&period;

One group wrote down everything they needed to do the next day and the other group was asked to write about what they had accomplished within the past few days&period;They also had strict bedtimes -- 10&colon;30 p&period;m&period; -- and they were not allowed to use electronics or do any additional work&period;

"We live in a 24&sol;7 culture in which our to-do lists seem to be constantly growing and causing us to worry about unfinished tasks at bedtime&comma;" said lead author Dr&period; Michael K&period; Scullin in a summary of the findings&period; "Most people just cycle through their to-do lists in their heads&comma; and so we wanted to explore whether the act of writing them down could counteract nighttime difficulties with falling asleep&period;"